Canton wants to extend runway, must have 500 operations a year to qualify for FAA funds

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By Hannah Schrodtof GateHouse Media Illinois

Journal Star

By Hannah Schrodtof GateHouse Media Illinois

Posted Aug. 19, 2014 at 6:53 PM

By Hannah Schrodtof GateHouse Media Illinois

Posted Aug. 19, 2014 at 6:53 PM

CANTON — The Canton Park Board is looking to extend one of the runways at Ingersoll Airport to spur economic development in the area.

Jon Johnson, park district director, said that to receive funds from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Illinois Department of Transportation Division of Aeronautics, the airport’s runway must have at least 500 operations a year.

Operations include a plane taking off and landing on the runway, with a takeoff and landing counting as one operation each.

The runway to potentially be extended at Ingersoll Airport is the north/south strip, called runway-1836. It is about 4,000 feet long by 75 feet wide, and Johnson said park district would like to extend it to 5,000 feet long.

The board is working to find a way to accurately measure the number of operations on runway-1836. Johnson said the board is considering a computer system with high definition monitors that would count all of the planes arriving and leaving the airport, though no official decisions have been made yet.

Even if the computer system is able to count the operations, Johnson said, the board would still need to measure the runway for one full year.

“We’re hoping if we have a long runaway, companies may want to come in and do some economic development,” Johnson said.

Johnson said the idea of extending the runway came about when Cook Medical began construction in 2009, and certain planes from the Cook Group in Indiana could not come to Canton because a runway was not long enough.

Since then the runway extension has remained on the board’s agenda for future projects.

“We’re not really in the position right now to do a runway extension, but it’s something we’d like to do,” Johnson said.